10 Short Stories About the Man Who Could Not Die
by PellNell
Summary: Ten drabbles written for the iTunes fic challenge, spoilers for "Exit Wounds" and the Who episode "The Stolen Earth."


"Look Up" – Stars

"Look Up" – Stars

Falling in love is easy for Gwen Cooper.

There were the dashing, sweet boys she knew in school, the ones who took her out to horrible movies and kissed her under street lights, the ones who turned into artists and philosophers and chain-smoked.

She'd been dating Rhys only a few weeks when she was certain she loved him. Safe, warm, and predictable. He fit her life like a glove.

Owen Harper had stolen her soul for a brief couple months. He'd possessed her body and mind, and when he held her in bed and touched her, it was like she'd frozen within his arms.

Jack Harkness is different, because Gwen is certain she will never have him. Not really. He might flirt with her and kiss her and touch her and caress her, but his heart belongs to Ianto. He's passionate and deep and breezy and the most remarkable man she's ever met, but he's happy, she thinks, with that quiet, emotional boy. And that's alright with her.

After all, falling in love is easy.

"The Bends" – Radiohead

Toshiko Sato, she lived in a dream world. It was far better than the life she'd been given.

In her mind, she was loved and appreciated, and everyone had the best of intentions. She was a smart, beautiful, exotic woman, and there were men and women waiting in line to know her.

The real world, that was a different story. Things were dark and shadowy and people died, each and every day almost. She loved against the odds, and she'd kissed men who'd be gone the very next moment. She made love to aliens occasionally, but then spent the rest of her time typing manically and spouting techno-babble.

It was a lovely world, the one she lived in. And when at last, her life slipped away from her, it wasn't so terrible. Not really. Because she found the world she'd dreamed about, so full of choices and promises, and all for her.

"Jack's Lament" – Danny Elfman

"Come back to bed," Ianto groaned, pulling the sheet around him.

"Can't," Jack replied quickly. It was three in the morning, and they'd had their fill of sex, love, procreation, whatever Jack had decided to call it at the moment.

Jack slipped out of the room and plopped himself down on Ianto's couch. It was stiff and gray and entirely too predictable.

His fingers drummed against the arm, and his mind was buzzing. It pulsed and caught fire, and he gazed into the darkness. There was so little to be seen there, and yet so much.

Ianto was sleeping. Jack could hear his steady breathing again, and he held his head in his hands. Sleep, that was a luxury, and Jack didn't have time for it. Not in this life, not for him here and now. Later, maybe.

"My Mathematical Mind" – Spoon

Facts and figures. That's what he's been plotting out late at night, Ianto knows. Jack cannot sit still, he cannot hold Ianto in bed, he cannot keep his hands in one place for too long, he cannot even sleep. But he can dream. Yes, he can.

And that is what he his doing, what he does. Ianto finds strange formulas and words scribbled over every available surface in the morning. Receipts, napkins, wrappers, bills, letters. They are everywhere, and Ianto can't make head or tails of them, except for that ridiculous-looking box, the one that looks like a telephone booth. There are stories printed on paper, stories Jack will never tell Ianto or any of his lovers. Stories about a man, the Doctor. The Doctor is Jack's mistress, Ianto thinks sometimes, and it's something that cannot be helped.

Ianto will kiss him in the morning, and wrap his arms around this ever-changing man, but he cannot dig into the real Jack, he cannot explore the one he loves, and he can never explore his mathematical mind. And perhaps, it's better that way. Everyone needs dreams and hopes and loves, even Jack.

"Dreaming of You" – The Coral

"Oh, Jack," she moans, the words a swear upon her lips.

It's always like this, so intense, and that is the way it has always been. Jack, he's intense, isn't he?

Martha, she hides her feelings from the world, it's what she does best now, after all that emotionless work for UNIT, but she whispers her lust in the dark when she's alone. Her fingers work fast and so gently, the way she imagines, hopes he would be. She'll never know, even though she could if she really wanted to.

But that's not Martha's style. She doesn't go around making love to her superiors in the hallways of government buildings, or on alien spacecrafts. Instead, it's something she does alone, in the dark.

"My Fellow Riders"

Rose hates him, she does, and she cannot help it. She hates Jack with every fiber of her being, every organ and limb of hers tries to fly from his grasp. He's cruel, he's awful, he's a bastard, he's a mother fucker. He's everything, every awful word Rose can think of.

And he's right. He's completely right, she knows, as he holds her back and whispers warnings in her ear. He's stopped her from killing herself in a mad dash to hold the man she loves. He's saved her life, he has, and Rose knows this.

And perhaps, that's why she hates him, wants to murder him right now, and why she relaxes into his arms after the lights have gone out and the Doctor is lying on the floor again, why she lets Jack decide when she can move and kiss to life her lover. Because he is right.

"Breathless" – The Corrs

The girl he'd met in the elevator that day, she was already at the coffee shop when Ianto arrived, not even a moment late.

She was sitting there, her nose pressed against the glass, and it was as if she thought Cardiff were the most fascinating place in the world. Her skin was bright and glowing, and her hair had been pulled back into the sort of bun ballerinas are fond of. Her eyes met his suddenly, and she smiled, just smiled so gorgeously, and that was the moment when he decided he was in love with her, and would do anything for her: protect her, die for her, kill for her.

She had been so beautiful, and her voice was soft and sure when she spoke his name. "Ianto?"

His voice had been shaking, and yet so certain. "It's good to see you again, Lisa."

"Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy" – Glen Hansard

He met them in London, in the 1940s.

It was brief and sweet and so very cute and damned from the beginning.

He kissed them goodbye, and he died for them.

And then the girl, she brought him back with her love.

And he had been trying to die ever since then.

"Naked" – Tracy Bonham

Owen Harper sipped his drink slowly. There was a blonde across the bar, a girl with a tight top and no fat around her midriff, and she was flirting with him, making love to him with her eyes and her teeth, the way she spread her tongue over them.

She was probably very drunk, but he'd forgotten afterwards. He'd sat there, finished his drink and savored every bitter drop, sucked in all the foam at the bottom of the bottle. The blonde, she stayed, and she feigned disinterest a couple times, and then she'd kept looking back at him, really looking at him. She knew his type. She knew he was an asshole, the kind who never called, and she hadn't cared one bit.

And he'd gotten up to leave and she'd followed, and they'd walked into the alley behind the bar, and he'd had her there, her back pressed against brick and her voice raspy as she sighed and moaned, all her cues taken from bad porn. He'd had her again back at his place, and she'd left an hour afterward. No number left behind, no nothing, not even a kiss goodbye. He'd hated himself in the morning, just like every other day.

"Drive On, Driver" – Magnetic Fields

Death. Well, it was so routine really, he hardly felt fussed by it anymore. He was shot, stabbed, his energy sapped by a demonic being, and it was just so passé now.

When the Daleks had shot him again, and he'd heard Rose and the Doctor screaming, it was like nothing, just another ritual.

He didn't wonder how they would cope without him, and why should he? He'd be back in a moment, maybe a few hours at the most. Instead, he savored the pain and the way the darkness swooped in about him, and he groaned a bit, just a tiny bit when he came to like a flash. Death was so routine, really, and he didn't like getting off-schedule.


End file.
